Raphanus

by Anne Wirtz

Case:
Female born 1948

She came to see me, in July 2001, again for her chronic abdominal complaints. I have known her for many years and she got LYCOPODIUM several times in the past, which comforted her complaints for a while, but they always returned.

Now she stays home from work for the last 2 months “because I need the rest”. It started this time with heavy gastro-intestinal trouble with nausea, vomiting, a lot of eructations and painful distention of the belly.

She is very sensitive to criticism and the feeling of being worthless and being rejected, which she has had from a very young age. She felt unappreciated by her family and taken for granted when she took care of her handicapped father. She was single and did not have a family of her own, “I have the feeling that people trample over me”.

For many years she was working hard to free herself through therapies and meditation. “I try to suppress my discontent over my job. I am exhausted. My basic feeling is of a Calvinistic heritage; You have to work and are not allowed to enjoy life!"

"My sleep is restless and anxious. My dreams are about not being good enough and being abandoned."

"In my job I used to accept how the management re-organized the work and I took the extra pressure from it, but I do not want to accept it any more. I feel manipulated by them. I am working harder all the time and they never give you the feeling that it is OK."

Analysis:
The distention and tympanitic abdomen and the belching are keynotes of RAPHANUS SATIVUS.
Family; Brassicaceae

The need for appreciation and especially the suppressed irritability and bitterness about it should be THE hint to look in this family, but I was not yet aware of the family-thinking and the themes connected. So after some years I understood the case in depth. She now does not need me anymore for any health-problems. She feels “happy and healthy” is what she told me in the street when we met recently.

The basic theme of the BRASSICACEAE or CRUCIFERAE (from Jan Scholten):
As if they have to carry their life as a crucifix. They have to work hard and they have to do a lot for others. They feel bitter, misused, abused, and cynical. There is complaining, lamenting, no fun in life, and the feeling they are not good enough. They are attached to old grievances.

Because of the feeling of being trampled over, like feeling a victim, outcast, the remedy is in Stadium 16
or the Lepra miasm of Sankaran.